


A Woolf of One's Own

by ALC_Punk



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, River Collects Famous People
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-20 01:06:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19983514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALC_Punk/pseuds/ALC_Punk
Summary: River appreciates time travel, particularly for all of the hearts she can break. Or at least kiss and tell about.





	A Woolf of One's Own

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted to write this, since River should be banging all the historical women. Technically, I started this before Clara Oswald went off and boffed Jane Austen, but I didn't manage to finish it until now.

In a world away from her normal milieu, River Song had caught a fish. It was the sort of fish she'd been intrigued by long before, and perhaps would be again at a later date. She'd caught the fish and she'd toyed with it, played with it and released it, then played with some more, until both of them were thoroughly sated.

Of course, the fish had been a woman. They always were, and River enjoyed the ones who liked both bicycles and swimming. Then again, bicycles could be highly over-rated.

She ought to know, having dealt with quite a few bicycles who'd under-estimated her terribly in her time.

None of them were ever the same again, of course.

Generally, she didn't think of them in the aftermath of pleasure. When in that state, the recurring thoughts which swirled in her mind and recalled her to other purposes and times, she could ignore for the moment. Could bury again in focusing on the now, on the woman in front of her.

"Darling, that was rather refreshing," said she, as she reclined rather splendidly on a day bed, her limbs splayed out under sheets of thin cotton. A sheen of sweat still coated her face, but there was a slight breeze washing in from the open windows.

"I am always refreshing," suggested her companion as the woman moved about the lofty room, mug in hand. The dressing gown she'd half-pulled on should have impeded her pacing, yet it didn't, as though she were used to the need to kick it away from herself as she moved. Abruptly, she stopped in front of her desk with a pleased sound.

River watched in fascination as Virginia threw herself into the chair, tea splashing the floor while she took up her pen in hand and began writing in a frenzy. The nib scratched the paper with a strangely soothing sound. Moments like this were what made time travel worth it. Brilliant woman, sunlight streaming through the overhead skylight, a nicely scandalous affair--if her reading of the period were correct, at least. River stretched again and mused to herself that she was exceedingly lucky to have managed it, even if the locale were rather primitive.

Bathing wasn't even all that common, or so she'd read.

Still, what better way to research her assignment than to experience the subject of her paper at first-hand? It was merely a bonus that lent a sensuous air to everything. Of course, River had rather intended such an out-come when she'd accosted her quarry the night before.

The clothing she wore was nearby, but she felt no need to get up as yet. The trousers and waistcoat could wait for later. The binding of her breasts had been rather annoying, truth be told. Perhaps she wouldn't bother with it this time.

"Dressing as a boy," said Virginia, interrupting River's rather rambling thoughts. Her pen had stilled while she turned to look at River. The tea mug was empty in her other hand, drunk during the writing or soaking into the carpet below. "Was it deliberate?"

With a shrug, River pushed herself into an even more provocative position. She'd always liked displaying her best assets, and the way Virginia's eyes followed the movement of the sheets as they slid down told her she wasn't wasting the effort. She tried for a mysterious smile and was sure she'd managed. "Which answer would you prefer?"

Virginia laughed, her pen and mug forgotten as she surged up to her feet again and left them behind. She moved towards River, the dressing-gown hanging off one shoulder, the bottom tangling and untangling with her legs as she walked. "You think you're the first?"

"I would hope not," said River, determined to sound comme il fait, as they would have said in this era.

"Wise thought--or perhaps mere practicality," Virginia knelt next to River on the edge of the bed, looming over her.

"Practicality is under-rated." Suddenly breathless with anticipation, River tried to resist the urge to pull Woolf into her arms again. The woman had been exceedingly passionate in their earlier encounters, and it was hard to simply resist another. "Come here."

That laugh sounded again, but Virginia tipped forward, allowing herself to be drawn down. River's hands slid under the dressing gown, fingers fitting themselves to the curves of Virginia's hips.

"Does writing do this to you?" River was trying for conversational, her thumbs sneaking inwards and brushing damp, wiry hair. Notes in her paper would have to be general, of course... nothing about the way it felt to be taken apart piece by piece by the great writer herself. Nothing about writhing beneath her, fingernails digging into the wood of the headboard.

Virginia moaned, eagerly pressing and rocking against River's fingers. "What a question, my River of Song."

"What a performance," River murmured back.

"I believe you might be nothing more than a figment of my imagination," murmured Virginia, her voice dreamy. "For you will leave, and I will be left with mere memories."

"Then," said River, quickening her pace, "let us make them good ones."

The writer smiled, as though she were the cat who'd gained the canary (an metaphor River was determined to emulate herself), "Yes."

-=-

In later years, River would trade on her experiences as lecture notes, detailing that getting up close and personal with one's research subject was _essential_ for providing the most accurate information. Sometimes, she demurred as to _how_ close and personal one should get.

There would always be the one or two students who got it, who understood. And when they returned from their research trips, they were sometimes quite obviously successful.

Corrupting the youth. It was the sort of thing which made it all worthwhile.

Somehow, it satisfied the part of her that had once been trained to hate and kill. The part of her that sometimes still woke in the still of the night and considered how easily it could make a change here, a nudge _there_ and re-write the outcome of more than one Fixed Point. But it was also the part of her that she would never excise.

One had to learn from one's past, after all. And she would always be her mothers' daughter.


End file.
